October 27, 2016

In this recent article by the Seattle times, they do a great job of highlighting the “soaring” 11.4% pricing increases of homes in the Greater Seattle area, but one key thing we have to keep in mind, which often gets overlooked by generalized statistics, is that real estate market trends are very local, and can vary widely from county to county, city to city, and even from neighborhood to neighborhood within the same city. Seattle’s market is very local.

Within the local market, the appreciation also varies based on various factors. As buyers in the Seattle city market are finding, some of the hottest neighborhoods will still see very limited inventory and often bidding wars for homes, but in the same neighborhood this may not translate to other property types such as ultra-luxury properties, and it may not translate to condominiums or townhomes either. If you run the same year over year comparison within specific neighborhoods breaking it out by subcategories such as different price points or different types of property, you will likely find varying appreciation rates across those different sub categories. But I feel this is really key and is more important than what the Greater Seattle area real estate market appreciation looks like. What does your local real estate market and it's different segments look like? That is what is important.

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About the Authors

Marco Kronen is the co-author and a condo Realtor. He and Wendy have worked together serving clients in Seattle since 2007. Feel free to contact Marco here.
Wendy Leung is the founding editor of the Seattle Condo Review. She's also a full-service Seattle realtor.